Looking through the corridor : Malaysia and the MSC

As part of a development plan-in-progress spanning a total of 25 years(1996 to 2020), Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) provides a unique opportunity to witness a brief and microcosmic unfolding of the reciprocally formative process between society and technology that Lewis Mumford lays out in exhaustive detail in Technics and Civilization (Mumford, 1963). The interlocking of national imagining, destiny and progress with a specific group of technologies, information and communication technologies (ICT) is, in itself, worthy of interest. However, what renders the MSC doubly remarkable is its introduction in Malaysia, one of the most well established of contemporary ethnocracies. This chapter reads the development and implementation of the MSC as the text through which the association between nation and ethnicity is examined. Broadly speaking I argue here that the MSC inflects the imagining(s) of Malaysia at two levels. At the first level where the MSC is understood to be the insertion of a new policy into Malaysia’s pre-existent ethnocratic climate, I contend the MSC inflects the nation through its incongruence with prevalent conditions. At the second level, where the MSC is viewed through the position of its Chinese populace, I suggest that the MSC inflects Malaysia (perhaps to a lesser degree) through the re-emphasis it lends to issues of transnationalism and belonging for the Malaysian Chinese.

Virtual diasporas and the dilemma of multiple belongings in cyberspace

One of the most celebrated qualities of the Internet is its enabling of simultaneity and multiplicity. By allowing users to open as many windows into the world as they (and their computers) can withstand, the Internet is understood to have brought places and cultures together on a scale and in a manner unprecedented. Yet, while the Internet has enabled many to reconnect with cultures and places long distanced and/or lost, it has also led to the belief that these reconnections are established with little correspondent cost to existent ties of belonging. In this paper, I focus on the dilemma multiple belongings engender for the ties of national belonging and question the sanguinity of multiple belongings as practised online. In particular, I use Lefebvre's notion of lived space to unpack the problems and contradictions of what has been called 'Greater China' for the ethnic Chinese minority in nations like Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.

The Hindraf saga : media and citizenship in Malaysia

In the early part of 2008, a major political upset was pulled off in the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia when the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (National Front), lost its long-held parliamentary majority after the general elections. Given the astonishingly high profile of political bloggers and relatively well established alternative online new sites within the nation, it was not surprising that many new media proponents saw the result as a major triumph of the medium. Through a brief account of the Hindraf (Hindu Rights Action Force) saga and the socio-political dissent nursed, in part, through new media in contemporary Malaysia, this paper seeks to lend context to the events that precede and surround the election as an example of the relationship between media and citizenship in praxis. In so doing it argues that the political turnaround, if indeed it proves to be, cannot be considered the consequence of new media alone. Rather, that to comprehensively assess the implications of new media for citizenship is to take into account the specific histories, conditions and actions (or lack of) of the various social actors involved.

Birthing practices of traditional birth attendants in south Asia in the context of training programmes

Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) training has been an important component of public health policy interventions to improve maternal and child health in developing countries since the 1970s. More recently, since the 1990s, the TBA training strategy has been increasingly seen as irrelevant, ineffective or, on the whole, a failure due to evidence that the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in developing countries had not reduced. Although, worldwide data show that, by choice or out of necessity, 47 percent of births in the developing world are assisted by TBAs and/or family members, funding for TBA training has been reduced and moved to providing skilled birth attendants for all births. Any shift in policy needs to be supported by appropriate evidence on TBA roles in providing maternal and infant health care service and effectiveness of the training programmes. This article reviews literature on the characteristics and role of TBAs in South Asia with an emphasis on India. The aim was to assess the contribution of TBAs in providing maternal and infant health care service at different stages of pregnancy and after-delivery and birthing practices adopted in home births. The review of role revealed that apart from TBAs, there are various other people in the community also involved in making decisions about the welfare and health of the birthing mother and new born baby. However, TBAs have changing, localised but nonetheless significant roles in delivery, postnatal and infant care in India. Certain traditional birthing practices such as bathing babies immediately after birth, not weighing babies after birth and not feeding with colostrum are adopted in home births as well as health institutions in India. There is therefore a thin precarious balance between the application of biomedical and traditional knowledge. Customary rituals and perceptions essentially affect practices in home and institutional births and hence training of TBAs need to be implemented in conjunction with community awareness programmes.

Measuring the success of ABC training in South Africa: A case study in the production of Western Liberal broadcast news values

In 1993 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was contracted by the Australian Government to assist in the reshaping of the South African Broadcasting Corporation from a state-run broadcaster to a respected and trusted national broadcaster for all people in the newly democratic South Africa. Broadcast journalism training was identified by ABC consultant Bob Wurth as possibly the greatest need for SABC Radio. This thesis examines the ABC's role in South Africa and the effectiveness of its radio journalism training project considering the organisational, structural, cultural and political constraints of the SABC. This thesis will show through interviews and participant observation the difficulties in achieving the production of Western Liberal journalism values at the SABC within the time constraints set by the project funded by the Australian Government and the particular South African morays.